Author Archives: Dick

We’ll Always Have Paris

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I write a weekly newspaper column and chair an arts council so I get a lot of press releases. You just can’t make some of this stuff up.

The nice folks at The Big E sent me this year’s entertainment lineup for the fair.

The Big E, the Eastern States Exposition, is New England’s biggest state fair, with “year-round opportunities for the development and promotion of agriculture, education, industry and family entertainment while preserving our New England heritage.” It culminates in a “field days” festival that starts in September. And it’s a lot more than farm implements.

“It’s your little girl’s squeals of delight every time a cow looks her way. Or the way your husband smiles after finishing a Craz-E Burger, or fried dough, or key-lime-pie-on-a-stick. It’s the look on your best friend’s face as she twirls through the sky on a crazy ride. Or the feeling you get when you catch a strand of Mardi Gras beads at the parade. The biggest fair in the Northeast is filled with amazing little moments. What will yours be?”

State fairs began in the nineteenth century to promote state agriculture, so they have always had livestock, farm products, competitions, and entertainment.

Gotta bring in the rubes.

The Texas State Fair had balloon ascents and “appearances by such notables as John Philip Sousa, William Jennings Bryan, Carrie Nation and Booker T. Washington.” The Iowa State Fair has had more than politicians to entertain us over the years, too.

In 1881, historian James Wilson noted that, “One of the most valuable effects of the [Iowa] State Fair is the fraternizing, humanizing consequences of bringing our people together … No one meets and mingles with 20,000 Iowa men, women and children on the Fairgrounds — the only place they can be brought together — without growth of sympathy.”

In 1922, two locomotives traveling at 10 mph crashed into each other in the second staged train wreck at the Iowa Grandstand. In 1925, more than 100 people entered the new fiddlers’ contest. The new Education Building in 1927 was a great attraction with its second floor art gallery.

The Big E is the only state fair in the nation with six states; the Avenue of States has replicas of each New England state’s original statehouse sitting on land owned by that state. The Vermont Building was constructed in 1926.

In past years, the fair has hosted bands I have booked or know well including Prydein for Celtic rock, the Western swing of Rick and the Ramblers, JimmyT and the Cobras with outlaw rock, Young Tradition Vermont, and many more. My friend Rebecca Padula who played for me at Bay Day this year was disinvited from the Big E lineup because her singing partner moved to California last week.

Some performers are more widely known.

Paris HiltonHidden among the 2015 notes that Alabama will play, that the Big E is ranked as the fifth largest fair in North America, that the Charlie Daniels Band will kick off the proceedings, and the agriculture results, is Paris Hilton.

Paris Hilton? “Yes, this is for real…Paris Hilton has added turntables and headphones to her accessories and is Western MA bound to DJ at The Big E!”

Turns out her debut album sold over 600,000 copies worldwide.

She can sing?

I watched her semi-explicit Good Time bubble gum video which features Lil Wayne.

She can sing?

The Big E had DJ Pauly D perform in 2013, something they called a “big success, attracting thousands of fans to the Fair.”

Paris might draw more, but for singing?

They have a countdown clock. The 2015 Big E with Paris starts in exactly 73 days, 20 hours, 00 minutes, and 00 seconds. I may go this year. I’ve always wanted to watch cow wrangling in Paris.

 

Just Words

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I have a little man-crush on Antonin Scalia.

Justice Antonin ScaliaAfter all, how many Supreme Court Justices could call a decision “jiggery-pokery”? Mr. Scalia did in his dissension to the King v. Burwell decision, otherwise known as the Care Package for the Unaffordable Care Act. Here he was absolutely right on the Law and right that lay readers and lawyers alike “would think the answer would be obvious — so obvious there would hardly be a need for the Supreme Court to hear a case about it.”

Next up, Obergefell v. Hodges, otherwise known as the Same Sex Marriage Decision. Here Mr. Scalia is wrong on the Law but dead-bang on in his description of the Court and the fallacious route they took to arrive at the right decision:

“Take, for example, this Court, which consists of only nine men and women, all of them successful lawyers who studied at Harvard or Yale Law School. Four of the nine are natives of New York City. Eight of them grew up in east- and west-coast States. Only one hails from the vast expanse in-between. Not a single Southwesterner or even, to tell the truth, a genuine Westerner (California does not count).”

“The opinion is couched in a style that is as pretentious as its content is egotistic… one would think Freedom of Intimacy is abridged rather than expanded by marriage. Ask the nearest hippie.”

Bwah!

 

Flag on the Play

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Flags of Conquered CountriesI’m a Yankee. My mother was born to a quiet Quaker lady whose father was an abolitionist. Still, I have no dog in this fight except one: Freedom of speech and expression in the United States is protected as our first and most fundamental Right. I also have one or two observations:

• The U.S. bested Great Britain in more than one war. The Union Jack still flies.
• The U.S. bested the Cherokee in the Chickamauga war. The Cherokee Nation banner still flies.
• The U.S. bested Eyalet of Tripolitania and the Sultanate of Morocco in the First Barbary War. The Royal Standard of Morocco still flies. The flag of Ottoman Tripolitania flew until 1911 when the seeds of Libya were sewn.
• The U.S. bested Spain in more than one war. The flag of Spain still flies (adopted in its current version in 1978).
• The U.S. bested Regency of Algiers in war. The flag of Algieria still flies.
• The U.S. and the Republic of Texas bested the Comanche Nation in war. The flag of the Comanche still flies.
• The U.S. bested Greek pirates in the Aegean Sea Operations. The flag of Greece still flies.
• The U.S. bested Fiji, Samoa, and Tabiteuea in an “Exploring Expedition.” The flags of the Republic of Fiji, the Independent State of Samoa, and the land of no chiefs still fly.
• The U.S. bested Mexico in the Mexican-American War. The Mexican still flies.
• The British Empire, France, and the U.S. finally bested the Qing Dynasty in war. The flag of the Qing Dynasty flew until 1912.
• The U.S. bested the Confederate States in war. The Confederate Battle Standard still flies. Oh. Wait.
• The U.S. allies bested China again in the Boxer Rebellion. The flag of the Qing Dynasty flew until 1912.
• The U.S. bested Germany and Mexico in the Mexico-United States border war. The flag of the German Empire flew until 1918.
• The U.S. bested Germany and Nicaraguan Liberals in war. The Republic of Nicaragua’s flag still flies.
• The U.S. bested Germany in more than one war. The flag of Germany still flies (adopted in its current version in 1949).
• The U.S. bested Japan in war. The Rising Sun still flies.
• The U.S. and Jamaica bested Grenada in war. The national flag of Grenada still flies.
• The U.S. deposed Manuel Noriega and bested Panama in war. The Panamanian flag still flies.
• The U.S. and allies deposed Muammar Gaddafi and bested Tripoli in war. The Libyan flag still flies.
• The U.S. bested Iraq in war. The Iraqis have had many flags; at least one may still be flying.
• Vietnam bested the U.S. in war. The American flag still flies (adopted in its current version in 1960).